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My whole team works remotely, and I made that hiring decision on purpose. So, if you’re unsure whether virtual teams work well or you question how it’s possible – this episode is for you.

I say this again and again, but – my team is my secret weapon. They are the reason I’m able to serve 75+ high-profile clients. They are the reason I’ve grown my business to multi-millions in revenue in less than three years.

One of the main reasons they’re the best of the best? I hire remotely.

In this episode, I’m talking about…

The power behind a remote team of people (+why I hire remotely)
Why I feel confident entrusting my high-profile clients to my team of 29+
How I avoid the trap of “micro-management”

This episode is a little different from my usual marketing content, but if you’re a business owner with 1+ employees, you’ve likely asked these questions, too. Listen in, and share your thoughts on Instagram!

NOTE – Listen to episode 40, The Secret Behind our Hiring that Creates Massive ROI for Clients, to learn more about the extensive hiring process that brings me the best of the best in ads managers.

Key Points:
[4:45] “10 years ago, you couldn’t do that!”
[5:43] I don’t micromanage my team – and you shouldn’t either.
[7:29] Why I feel confident entrusting my high-profile clients to my team of 29+
[9:03] Don’t tell me it’s not possible! Here’s the proof.

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Episode Transcripts:  

In today’s episode I’m going to talk about something a little different, and that is team and team building … not team building, but about my team and just an opinion I have about our team. The reason I’m doing this is, I did a post last week about team and something I’m going through that was an epiphany for me and how much I’ve grown in six months as a leader, and I had a couple of people comment, and they’re like, “Can you talk more about this on your podcast?”

I don’t know if everybody wants this. I recognize it’s a marketing podcast, but also, I spend all day becoming a better leader and managing my team and managing my team so that from leadership down we can serve our clients with the best possible service. Whenever I get on a call to talk to somebody about working with Hirsh Marketing, I literally say every single time, my secret weapon is my team. The reason I have the biggest marketing team in the influencer space serving high level, A list influencers and that I’ve been able to grow it this rapidly is 100% my team.

Obviously I work on myself and show up as a leader and put systems and processes and lead the team and guide the team, and so I definitely play a part in it. But I couldn’t do this without my team. The reason we deliver such a good service is because I hire amazing people and then I have created an amazing training, which I actually did an episode about the training we put our team through, and then they can deliver to our clients because I’m only one person.

My biggest journey and growing in my business has been growing my team. That’s been the hardest part, the most rewarding thing ever, and I’m just so excited to talk about … today actually came from a team member. She came to me with this idea. She’s like, “You should totally talk about this because it’s so amazing, and I’ve been a part of other companies that didn’t have this.” And that is having a remote team and the power behind it.

I think if you’re in digital marketing and you’re growing a business online, then you already know the power of the digital world and what the future holds and how more and more people are switching to remote teams and basically taking their business online. But we live in it, and so we forget that not everybody sees this. But I want you guys to think about this one thing, and that is, when you grow a business in a city, like I live in Austin, Texas now. If I was to say, I have an in-person office and I’m hiring only people in Austin, Texas, think about the talent option I have. Like yes, I have talent options, but I’m limited to this region of the country: Austin, Texas.

Because I have a remote team, we hire people in the North American timezone, so that means I have Canadians and I have US members, and I can be so picky about the talent that we bring on the team. And we are. We have a 7-step, we’ve actually increased our interview process to even get hired, and then we put people through a 90-day training program to be able to serve our clients. That’s intense. That’s an investment that I have in these people, and we only bring through people that are amazing because they go through seven steps before they even get an offer letter.

What I’m constantly blown away by, and what I think is so important to look at, is the talent, the talent that I have because I can choose people from all over the US and all over Canada to come and work for Hirsh Marketing. That 100x the talent option that I have, I believe, to come into my company, and that is so powerful.

Not just me, but I look at my friends, Alex and Leila Hormozi, who own GymLaunch, it’s, I don’t know, I think they’re at 60 million now with 100 team members, and they have the same. They have mostly remote people. They have a few people here in Austin. They don’t have an in-house office, or they don’t have a brick and mortar place, but they do have a few local people. But otherwise most people are virtual. The speed that they’ve been able to grow their business, like 10 years ago you couldn’t even do that. You couldn’t even grow a business that fast. And it’s just so exciting to be a part of this in this era of being able to grow our team so quickly and our business so quickly because of the talent that we have, that we can source.

I will never have just an … like I will never have an office. People ask me that, “Will you open an office? Like how do you …” Oh my gosh, I get asked this question all the time. “How do you know that your people are doing the work every day if they’re not sitting in an office and you’re watching over [their] shoulder?” To me, I get the question, but my answer is always, “We have such intense systems and processes that hold people accountable that you can’t even go a day without showing up and doing your job in this company without somebody noticing, who you report to, noticing that balls are being dropped, and on you for it.”

Yes, we fire people. We have high expectations. But like I said, we’re trying to get that percentage down all the time in who we have to let go in the first month by having that seven step interview process and a test that they take before they get hired and then the training plan. We’re constantly improving that honestly. But I never have … You don’t have to lead from a place of micro management. You shouldn’t lead from a place of micro management. And if you are, then you don’t have systems and processes in place in your business that hold people accountable, because if you have that, you never have to micro manage. You can see a problem instantly, because everybody is being held accountable.

So I will never have an office because I don’t need one, because it would limit my talent that I would be able to bring on to my team to one city, and also honestly, I got started in this so I don’t have to show up to an office every day. I don’t want to do that. I want to work in my home and be here for my kids. That’s why I started this business, not to create it into a job.

I think it’s very powerful, it’s something to think about, and also keeping in mind when people are afraid of really building big virtual teams … We have 29 employees right now. It fluctuates a little bit back and forth. We were up to 30 last month, but we had to let somebody go, so we have 29. Every time I say that, “I have 29 employees and they’re all virtual,” and then I look at my friends, Alex and Leila, who have 100 and they’re like pretty much all virtual. Some are in the town of Austin, but they don’t have to show up at an office, so they’re really all remote. People are like, “Oh my gosh, like how do you manage that many people virtually,” and it really blows them away.

I’m not this amazing super-powered person who can just manage people virtually. I mean there’s other companies doing this, bigger companies doing this, but I think it’s so overwhelming for people because they think they have to keep track of every person and what they’re doing. And then they set up programs like screenshotting their screen. I don’t even know. I know that some of the online job programs like Upwork, but also I think you can even buy programs that do this, which I just hate, which is like screenshotting people’s screens during the day randomly to make sure that they’re staying focused. I just, I don’t know, that feels so gross to me to do that.

I want to trust my team. If I don’t trust my team that they’re going to do their job, they shouldn’t be on my team. I’m trusting them with my clients and client accounts and representing my name and my brand. So if I can’t trust that they’re going to do their job, then something is wrong there with my leadership and our systems.

So it all comes back to those systems and processes. But also I really just wanted to do this to say to you guys that, A, having a remote team that’s huge is 100% possible, and you should look at that today because, B, the second point is how powerful it is when you think about the talent that I’m able to source by not having to be limited to one city.

I know people who have businesses like that and they’re like, “It takes us sometimes like one to two months to find a position, because we’re having to go through so many people that are not qualified, and we’re limited to people only within like 20 miles of our office,” which is crazy. I don’t even know how people do it honestly because I’ve never done it any other way than this. But it’s just, think about the talent that you can get. And then because you have that ability to get that amazing talent, like be picky, be picky with who you bring on your team. It’ll make your life so much easier when you are picky and you make people go through a process even to just get an offer letter, and then you put them through amazing training that pushes them out if they’re not accountable.

We just had that. We just had someone come in, go through the training. We have expectations. Like you get through the workbook by this day. You’re able to do this by day seven. It’s like bootcamp, our training. And he was super slow, and he was not finishing things on time, like end of the day he wasn’t doing it, and seven days in we let him go. That’s fine. We have a few people that get through that we still do that with, but it’s like they don’t last long, and I’m not screenshotting his screen and having to micromanage him.

And to be honest, I didn’t even hire him or fire him. My team came to me, not even came to me, came to my COO and was like, “Here’s the situation. If this isn’t improved by tomorrow, we’re going to let him go,” and we’re like, “Okay.” I give my leaders that power as well to manage their team because I can’t manage 20 people. Are you kidding? I would go crazy. The standard is that someone can only manage up five to seven people. Otherwise it’s way too overwhelming. I have one person that I work with on my company directly, it’s my COO, but otherwise I don’t directly manage anybody else.

If you have a remote team and you’re scared to grow it big, or you have a remote team but you feel like you don’t have amazing talent in there, I want to shift your mindset a little bit with this episode and how freaking powerful it is when you can build a remote team with amazing systems and processes and the options of talent that you have just at your fingertips because of the location that you can choose from any of the 50 states and if you want Canada.

I mean I have amazing … My COO’s in Canada, amazing people in Canada. I just require North American timezone because we all work business hours. That is the requirement for my team, that you work 9-5 your hours because we’re all online and we need to talk, so I’m not like so flexible that you can work whatever time you want. But we never have issues with the remote team, and I will never change that. So I wanted to share that with you guys today.

Based on that post, there was several people who wanted me to share more about my team. If you want me to share more about my team, let me know because I need to know. I go into this thinking you guys just want to hear marketing. You don’t want to hear behind the scenes team stuff. It sounds like some people really do and are intrigued.

Like I said, my team is my secret weapon. It’s 100% why I’ve been able to get to where I am. But not only why I’ve been able to get to where I am, but why we’ve been able to serve our clients and why we have 95-98% retention rate on our team, I mean in our company with our clients, is because of my team. It’s not me. I don’t touch Facebook ads anymore. I haven’t in eight months. My team is amazing, and the systems that we’ve built inside of my team makes it so everybody is accountable, everybody can do an amazing job, and is set up for success so that at the end of the day our clients win.

If you’re interested in being one of those clients and working with the amazing Team Hirsh, who I could brag about all day long, go to HelpMyStrategy.com and apply to work with us today. Thanks for tuning in guys.